A CLAWING cat fight over mistaken identity has broken out between New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and a writer for the Times of London.

At the core of the mystery: Did Dowd mistake journalist Michelle Henery, who is black, for Michelle Obama? Or did Henery mistake some other redhead for Dowd?

In a column in the London paper this week, Henery wrote that Dowd, “one of my journalistic heroes,” came up to her in the press room after the last Hillary Clinton–Barack Obama debate in LA. “. . . She was in my face, smiling warmly, greeting me like a long-lost friend. My mind went into overdrive trying to figure out why the world-renowned, Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times uber-columnist . . . was speaking to me. The shock . . . left me momentarily speechless, but in those few seconds Maureen’s sweet smile turned into embarrassed confusion and she scampered off.”

Henery continued, “The next day I e-mailed a group of American friends, asking whose doppelganger I was. They all agreed: ‘She must have thought you were Michelle Obama.’ ”

Henery, a 1998 Georgetown University grad, added sarcastically: “Of course! I mean, despite her having almost 15 years on me and more than 3 inches in height, not to mention that she should be immediately recognizable having had her face plastered across every newspaper in America for the past three months, we’re like twins . . . I wondered how white America was going to elect a black man for president if they could not even tell us apart.” She joked: “Maureen, no hard feelings. When you came up to me, I mistook you for Arianna Huffington.”

But a furious Dowd told Page Six: “[It’s] total fiction. I never went up to this woman, or mistook her for anyone. I’ve been covering Barack and Michelle Obama for a year, and I know what they look like. And I would never expect to see a candidate or a spouse in the press room at a debate because that never happens. It’s outrageous conjecture.” Dowd said she planned to ask the Times of London for a correction.

Dowd asked us to talk to Men’s Vogue deputy editor Ned Martel to corroborate her side of the story. Martel told us: “I was with her almost the entire evening and nothing like that ever happened.” The Times of London said it is looking into Dowd’s complaint.